Hardwired, Episode One

By Walter Jon Williams

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Hardwired, Episode One Episode One of the classic novel!

Earth lies prostrate beneath the lash of the Orbital powers, and Earth’s Balkanized nations have no choice but to let the Orbitals plunder their remaining wealth. Below the zone of Orbital control, buttonheads, panzerjocks, dirtgirls, and hustlers scramble for their ticket out of the gravity well.

But now, if the criminal underworld and the guerilla underground can join forces, there is a chance to shift the balance of power— in a war fought on the ground by hardwired commandos, in the air by high-flying deltajocks, and by genius hackers in the neural interface.

As Roger Zelazny said, “Hardwired” is a tough, sleek juggernaut of a story, punctuated by strobe light movements, coursing to the wail of jets and the twang of steel guitars— glittering, nasty, and noble— and told in a style perfectly suiting its content. It has all of my favorite things— blood, love, fire, hate and a high ideal or two. I wish I’d written this one.”

More by Walter Jon Williams

Walter Jon Williams "The Rift would be a very good beach book, if you could put it down long enough to get into the water." —— The San Diego Union Tribune

FRACTURE LINES PERMEATE THE CENTRAL UNITED STATES. Some comprise the New Madrid fault, the most dangerous earthquake zone in the world. Other fracture lines are social—— economic, religious, racial, and ethnic.

What happens when they all crack at once?

Caught in the disaster as cities burn and bridges tumble, young Jason Adams finds himself adrift on the Mississippi with African-American engineer Nick Ruford. A modern-day Huck and Jim, they spin helplessly down the river and into the widening faults in American society, encountering violence and hope, compassion and despair, and the primal wilderness that threatens to engulf not only them, but all they love...

" A breakout book that you'll swear the author lived" —— SF Age

"I don't like disaster novels. I would not have even glanced at The Rift if it weren't backed by Walter Jon Williams' reputation for excellence. And I definitely would not have kept reading if Williams hadn't demonstrated on every page that he deserves his reputation. The result? I was so engrossed in—— and engaged by ——The Rift that I forgot that I don't like disaster novels. This book is an impressive achievement.”
—— Stephen R. Donaldson, New York Times bestselling author of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

"The Rift is bloody wonderful! Williams brings an historic disaster back for an encore and metaphorically flattens it again. This is the stuff for which sleep is lost--and awards are made." —— Dean Ing

"The Rift shakes up the world like it's never been shaken before." —— Fred Saberhagen

"[For fans of the disaster novel] Williams delivers the requisite thrills and setpieces—— but he also, to paraphrase Conrad, offers a bit of that truth for which they forgot to ask." —— Locus

Walter Jon Williams The time of reckoning is close at hand. Events in the New York Times bestselling Star Wars The New Jedi Order series take a decisive turn, as the heroes of the New Republic prepare for their most volatile clash yet with the enemy—from without and within.

In the war against the ruthless Yuuzhan Vong, the fall of Coruscant leaves the New Republic divided by internal strife, and on the verge of bowing to conquest. But those who steadfastly refuse to consider surrender—Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa Solo, and their children and comrades-in-arms—are determined to seize victory against overwhelming odds. And now, finally, there are signs that the tide may be turning in the New Republic’s favor.

After capturing crucial Yuuzhan Vong intelligence, Jedi fighter-pilot Jaina Solo prepares to lead a daring surprise strike against an enemy flagship. Meanwhile, Jaina’s brother Jacen—liberated from the hands of the enemy and newly schooled in an even greater mastery of the Force by the Jedi Knight Vergere—is eagerly poised to bring his unique skills to bear against the invaders. And on Mon Calamari, the New Republic’s provisional capital, the retired, ailing hero Admiral Ackbar has conceived a major tactical plan that could spell the beginning of a swift end for the Yuuzhan Vong.

Yet even as opposing squadrons face off in the depths of space, intrigue runs rampant: in the heated political race for Chief of State . . . in the shadows where Yuuzhan Vong spies plot assassinations . . . and in the inscrutable creature Vergere, a Jedi Knight whose allegiance is impossible to predict. And as Luke Skywalker sets about reestablishing the Jedi Council, the growing faction opposed to the ways of the Force unveil a terrifying weapon designed to annihilate the Yuuzhan Vong species. But in doing so, they may be dooming the New Republic to becoming the very thing it has sworn to fight against—and unleashing the power of the dark side.

Features a bonus section following the novel that includes a primer on the Star Wars expanded universe, and over half a dozen excerpts from some of the most popular Star Wars books of the last thirty years!

Walter Jon Williams BONUS: This original novella includes an exclusive excerpt from Star Wars: New Jedi Order: Force Heretic I: Remnant and an interview with the author.

RIPE FOR THE PLUCKING

That’s Jedi Knight Kyp Durron’s opinion about the planet Ylesia, home base of the so-called Peace Brigade, a group of traitors dedicated to hindering the war efforts of the New Republic and hastening the ultimate victory of the merciless Yuuzhan Vong. Kyp’s plan calls for a lightning-fast strike, backed with overwhelming force, to destroy the Brigade’s offensive capabilities and teach prospective traitors that betrayal carries a heavy price. But young Jacen Solo, still bearing the scars of his imprisonment by the Yuuzhan Vong, has a better idea: a daring raid into the heart of Ylesia’s capital, with the objective of capturing the Brigade’s top leaders—including the newly sworn-in President, Thrackan Sal-Solo, cousin to Jacen and his twin, Jaina.

But unknown to the Jedi and the New Republic forces, Supreme Overlord Shimrra of the Yuuzhan Vong has dispatched reinforcements to the Ylesia system. Instead of a swift surgical strike, Jaina, Jacen, Kyp, and their comrades are about to find themselves locked in a desperate battle for survival, with the odds stacked against them and time running out. . . .

No Star Wars fan will want to miss this exciting eBook exclusive adventure from Nebula Award-winner Walter Jon Williams, author of the forthcoming Star Wars The New Jedi Order hardcover novel, Destiny’s Way.

Walter Jon Williams ORPHANS OF DEEP SPACE . . .

They’re outlaws now. Created to serve a function grown obsolete, haunted by the holographic ghost of their father, Ubu and Maria have lived their entire lives skating along the edge of extinction. Now they and their ship Runaway are in flight both from the law and from a predatory clan of competitors. They’re going to come back rich, or not at all.

But what they find in the depths of space isn’t wealth, but a secret so startling that Ubu and Maria will need every last reserve of guile, cunning, and intelligence just to survive . . .

“No one can accuse Williams of failing to grow with each new major work . . . Straight-forward space adventure with a strong picaresque flavor. The pacing is brisk, the high-tech details vivid, the rewards to readers considerable.”
---Booklist

“Williams colorfully invokes the life of the trader families and their honkeytonk space stations. With its emphasis on youth, beauty, sex, and mischief, [ANGEL STATION] also conjures a contemporary mood agreeably distinct from its futuristic settings.”

--Publishers Weekly

“Williams has it all.” --Analog

“Williams is a skillfully literate addition to the stylish new generation of science fiction writers.”
---Chicago Tribune

Walter Jon Williams Fantasy Review
“Cowboy is no Rambo; he is a thoughtful, intelligent hero. He and Sarah are two of the many good things about HARDWIRED. Another is the world they inhabit--- an incredibly detailed future of personality transfers, bizarre drugs, cybernetic implants, and complex political and economic power maneuvers . . . It is one of the best SF novels I have read in years; I heartily recommend it.”

Providence Sunday Journal
‘The story moves with the speed of a hovercraft, the climax has all the action and excitement of Star Wars and the ending has a delightful twist.’

Rockland Courier-Gazette
“Williams' use of language is as explosive and as techno-tinged as the world he describes. Reading the book is like taking a jet ride across a futuristic America, with acceleration forcing you back in your seat all the way.”

Earth lies prostrate beneath the lash of the Orbital powers, and Earth's Balkanized nations have no choice but to let the Orbitals plunder their remaining wealth. Below the zone of Orbital control, buttonheads, panzerjocks, dirtgirls, and hustlers scramble for their ticket out of the gravity well.

But now, if the criminal underworld and the guerilla underground can join forces, there is a chance to shift the balance of power-- in a war fought on the ground by hardwired commandos, in the air by high-flying deltajocks, and by genius hackers in the neural interface.

As Roger Zelazny said, "Hardwired" is a tough, sleek juggernaut of a story, punctuated by strobe light movements, coursing to the wail of jets and the twang of steel guitars-- glittering, nasty, and noble-- and told in a style perfectly suiting its content. It has all of my favorite things-- blood, love, fire, hate and a high ideal or two. I wish I'd written this one."

Walter Jon Williams Steward is a Beta— a clone. In his memories, he’s an elite commando for an orbital policorp— but because his Alpha never did a brain-scan update, Steward’s memories are fifteen years out of date . . . and in those fifteen years, everything has changed.

An interstellar war destroyed the company that held his allegiance. His wife has divorced him, along with the second wife that he can’t even remember. Most of his comrades died in a useless battle on a world called Sheol, and those who survived are irrevocably scarred. An alien race has arrived and become the center of a complex and deadly intrigue.

“(Williams) is a master of the intricate yet fast-paced plot— the essence of thrillers and novels of political intrigue.” –Locus

author of Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin
Knight Moves is an engrossing and evocative read, a tale of immortality and love and death rendered in a style that reminds me more than a little of the early Roger Zelazny. Williams' people are intriguing and sympathetic, and his portrait of an Earth left transformed and empty by a humanity gone to the stars, where aliens dig among ancient ruins for old comic books while the creatures of legends stir and walk again, will linger in my memory for a long time. Williams is a writer to watch.

Nominated for the Philip K Dick Award!

Eight hundred years ago Doran Falkner gave humanity the stars, and he now lives with his regrets on a depopulated Earth among tumbledown ruins and ancient dreams brought to life by modern technology.

But word now comes that alien life has been discovered on a distant world, life so strange and impossible that the revelation of its secrets could change everything. A disillusioned knight on the chessboard of the gods, Doran must confront his own lost promise, his lost love, and his lost humanity, to make the move that will revive the fortunes both of humans and aliens . . .

Walter Jon Williams All will must bend to the perfect truth of The Praxis

For millennia, the Shaa have subjugated the universe, forcing the myriad sentient races to bow to their joyless tyranny. But the Shaa will soon be no more. The dread empire is in its rapidly fading twilight, and with its impending fall comes the promise of a new galactic order . . . and bloody chaos.

A young Terran naval officer marked by his lowly birth, Lt. Gareth Martinez is the first to recognize the insidious plot of the Naxid -- the powerful, warlike insectoid society that was enslaved before all others -- to replace the masters’ despotic rule with their own. Barely escaping a swarming surprise attack, Martinez and Caroline Sula, a pilot whose beautiful face conceals a deadly secret, are now the last hope for freedom for every being who ever languished in Shaa chains -- as the interstellar battle begins against a merciless foe whose only perfect truth is annihilation.

Walter Jon Williams NOMINATED FOR A NEBULA AWARD. Walter Jon Williams’ classic science fantasy Metropolitan is once again available for a new generation of readers.

Aiah has fought her way from poverty and discovered a limitless source of plasm, the mysterious substance that powers the world-city. Her discovery soon involves her with Constantine, the charismatic, dangerous, seductive revolutionary who plans to overthrow, not simply the government, but the cosmic order . . .

“Entertaining . . . Williams understands that science fiction can breathe life into language . . . [His] writing is always lean, lively and engaging.
New York Times Book Review

Walter Jon Williams Peter Heck, Washington Post
"Williams' longest, most densely realized and successful book to date."Roland Green, Chicago Tribune
"This is a novel that works marvelously on a variety of levels-- as an adventure story, a trek through personal entanglements, a study in detailed police techniques and an enlightening lesson in theoretical science. And if that isn't enough, it also offers a totally unexpected ending."
Loren Hawn is a traditional Western peace officer walking the streets of 21st Century New Mexico, and seemingly unaware that times have changed. And when a dying man named Randal falls out of a bullet-riddled car and dies in Loren’s arm, Loren finds he isn’t the only man living in the wrong time--- because he remembers pulling Randal’s dead body out of a wrecked car twenty years before.

He knows the car belongs to a scientist who works at the high-security laboratory built on the outskirts of town, and he knows that if he doesn’t work fast, all evidence of a crime will disappear into national security vaults. In order to bring justice back to his community, Loren will have to risk everything, his life, his job, his faith, and his family.

This is one of Walter Jon Williams' finest works.

Walter Jon Williams The universe has fallen into bloody chaos now that the dread empire of the tyrannical Shaa is no more -- at the mercy of the merciless insectoid Naxid, who now hunger for domination. But the far-flung human descendants of Terra have finally tasted liberty, and their warrior heroes will not submit. Separated by light-years, Lord Gareth Martinez and the mysterious guerrilla fighter Caroline Sula each pursue a different road to victory in tomorrow's ultimate battle -- for the new order will be far more terrible than the old ... unless one last, desperate stratagem can hold a shattered galaxy together.

Walter Jon Williams "Well-developed characters, an intriguing plot and a clear-eyed view of the double-edged sword called change make [AMBASSADOR OF PROGRESS] an engrossing book..."
LIBRARY JOURNAL

An interstellar catastrophe has left humanity scattered on dozens of primitive worlds. Fiona is an emissary to one such world, charged with helping the inhabitants of Echidne rise from barbarism.

But once she's arrived on the planet, she finds herself in the middle of a war... the Brodaini, the world's most ferocious warriors, have risen in revolt against their overlords. The combat threatens to become a war of extermination.

Fiona is a neutral in the war. But Echidne is proving a perilous place for neutrals...

Walter Jon Williams The Dread Empire of the Shaa is no more, following the death of the last oppressor. But freedom remains elusive for the myriad sentient races enslaved for ten centuries, as an even greater terror arises. The Naxids—a powerful insectoid species themselves subjugated until the recent Shaa demise—plan to fill the vacuum with their own bloody domination, and have already won a shattering victory with superior force and unimaginable cruelty. But two heroes survived the carnage at Magaria: Lord Gareth Martinez and the fiery, mysterious gun pilot Lady Caroline Sula, whose courageous exploits are becoming legend in the new history of galactic civil war. Yet their cunning, skill, and bravery may be no match for the overwhelming enemy descending upon the loyalist stronghold of Zanshaa, as the horrific battle looms that will determine the structure of the universe—and who shall live to inhabit it—for millennia to come.

When you play one of Dagmar’s online games, you can’t just shut down the computer and walk away. The games pursue you into real life: you start getting emails and phone calls from fictional characters, perfect strangers ask you to help solve their problems, and sometimes you’re asked to volunteer for a mission to discover a vital clue.

But now something is pursuing Dagmar.

From the anarchy of a street riot in Indonesia to the brutality of a Mafia killing in Los Angeles, from the seedy glitz of Hollywood to the ruthless international currency market, Dagmar finds herself at the center of an intrigue far more desperate than those she devises for entertainment.

And somehow, she knows, the key to the puzzle lies in her own past, and the gaming group she joined in college.

Dagmar must draw on all her skill to preserve her life, not the least of which is her circle of online gamers whose well-honed puzzle-solving skills may be vital to preserving her life.

This Is Not a Game. And there is no Second Life.

“Williams (The Rift) weaves intriguing questions about games, gamers and their relationships with real life into this well-paced near-future thriller.” --Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

“This Is Not a Game is a compelling mystery, one that threateningly demands—like a militant nun, ruler in hand, your knuckles spread before her—for you to continue, to finish. Stopping, it’s not an option. It’s not even a thought. You turn the pages of the book not just to get answers, but to get the questions, also. And neither disappoint. There is no letdown, no clumsy resolution, no descent into lameness. Everything works, the story coming together beautifully like a well-played game of chess, Williams maneuvering the reader, skillfully. Like a pawn. A very happy pawn. –Paul Stotts

“Williams, from his own experience, knows how these games work and how the participants react, and the result is that This Is Not a Game succeeds only as a suspense novel, but as an incisive portrait of a subculture for whom reality is increasingly contingent, and increasingly mediated.” --Gary Wolfe, Locus

Having offended her superiors by winning a battle without permission, Caroline Sula has been posted to the planet Earth, a dismal backwater where careers go to die. But Sula has always been fascinated by Earth history, and she plans to reward herself with a long, happy vacation amid the ancient monuments of humanity's home world.

Sula may be an Earth history buff, but there are aspects of her own history she doesn't want known. Exposure is threatened when an old acquaintance turns up unexpectedly. Someone seems to be forging evidence that would send her to prison. And all that is before someone tries to kill her.

If she's going to survive, Sula has no choice but to make some history of her own.

Reviews:"Well told with story plot, well-drawn characters, and excellent wordsmithing...It feels like Williams is having a great time with Impersonations." — Locus

"Readers will savor this intriguing glimpse into the life of a woman who struggles with her own identity and the price of her action." — Publishers Weekly

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Walter Jon Williams Episode One of the classic novel!

Earth lies prostrate beneath the lash of the Orbital powers, and Earth’s Balkanized nations have no choice but to let the Orbitals plunder their remaining wealth. Below the zone of Orbital control, buttonheads, panzerjocks, dirtgirls, and hustlers scramble for their ticket out of the gravity well.

But now, if the criminal underworld and the guerilla underground can join forces, there is a chance to shift the balance of power— in a war fought on the ground by hardwired commandos, in the air by high-flying deltajocks, and by genius hackers in the neural interface.

As Roger Zelazny said, “Hardwired” is a tough, sleek juggernaut of a story, punctuated by strobe light movements, coursing to the wail of jets and the twang of steel guitars— glittering, nasty, and noble— and told in a style perfectly suiting its content. It has all of my favorite things— blood, love, fire, hate and a high ideal or two. I wish I’d written this one.”

Walter Jon Williams Unable to find a meaningful posting due to the hostility of his superiors, Captain Lord Gareth Martinez has accepted a meaningless post as Inspector General of Chee, a newly-settled world. Intending nothing more than a pleasant vacation with his family, he first stumbles across a murderous conspiracy, and then learns he must battle a literal cosmic menace that threatens to wipe out all life on the planet

Four amazing alternate histories.

In this collection of novellas, four masters of alternate history turn back time, twisting the facts with four excursions into what might have been.

Bestselling author Harry Turtledove imagines a different fate for Socrates (now Sokrates); S. M. Stirling envisions life "in the wilds of a re-barbarized Texas" after asteroids strike the earth in the 19th century; Sidewise winner Mary Gentle contributes a story of love (and pigs) set in the mid-15th century, as European mercenaries prepare to sack a Gothic Carthage; and Nebula nominee Walter Jon Williams pens a tale of Nietzsche intervening in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Walter Jon Williams This work won Walter Jon Williams the Nebula Award in 2001.

Little Jamie lives with his family in an eerily perfect environment, entertained by characters from literature, sung to sleep at night by the Woman in the Moon. But cracks begin to appear in Jamie’s world that reveal rifts within his family, and he begins to see the terrifying reality behind the walls of his life, and to understand that perfection has its price . . .

Sean Makin was a washed-up child actor, until Dagmar Shaw made him a star. Now he's starring in a big-budget action thriller that offers him the chance to become a box-office titan.

Except the action and the thrills aren't just in the movie. Dangerous and destabilizing new technology is floating around behind the scenes. Police and cartel lords lurk in the shadows. An assassin is on the loose, and has already claimed his first victim.

Sean could be next in the killer's sights, unless he can find out what the bad guys want, who's hiding it, and how many people he's going to have to betray in order to save his life--- and more importantly, his celebrity.

Walter Jon Williams Written with care, intelligence, and grace, [Aristoi] depicts a future society based on highly developed computers and biological engineering, the key skills of which are controlled by an elite known as the Aristoi. This world is depicted meticulously and vividly, and so is the near war of all against all that is unleashed when one of the Aristoi falls prey to the corruption of power. A fine, thoughtful work, highly recommended; Williams seems to grow with each book.
---Roland Green, Chicago Sun-Times

Beneath the facade of universal prosperity, however, lurks a tide of dissension and madness that can only be fought from within. Williams tests the borders of imagination in a novel that combines brilliant hard science and speculative vision with a firm grip on the central humanity of his characters. A priority purchase for sf collections.
---Library Journal

In this complex and rewarding novel, Williams has created a future which features many of the wonders SF has been promising us for years: virtual reality, genetic engineering, faster-than-light travel, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, telepathic links with computers, and more.
---Publishers Weekly

Gabriel is one of the Aristoi, the elite class that hold dominion over a glittering interstellar culture, their rule more absolute than that of any Old Earth tyrant. When another of the Aristoi is murdered, Gabriel finds that the foundations of his civilization are tottering, and that his own power may have its roots in the greatest lie in all history.

In order to defend himself and the interstellar order, Gabriel must go on a quest into the heart of barbarism and chaos, and discover within himself his own lost, tattered humanity.

Walter Jon Williams From New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Walter Jon Williams comes an adventurous epic fantasy about a man who is forced to leave his comfortable life and find his fortune among goddesses, pirates, war, and dragons.

Rogue. Joker. Lover. Reluctant soldier.

Quillifer is a young man, serially in love and studying law, when a family tragedy throws him into the world to seek his fortune. A charmer rather than a fighter, he soon finds himself embroiled with a bandit gang, caught up in vicious court intrigues, and the plaything of an angry, beautiful, and very jealous goddess. While he struggles to establish himself in the capital, the country finds itself pitched into a civil war, and Quillifer, a unwilling soldier at best, finds himself caught up in the action, and able to tip the scales of fortune.

Quillifer, with its engaging hero and his exploits with lovers, brawlers, warriors, and privateers, is a book that bursts with life. It’s the first volume in a new epic fantasy by bestselling and award-winning author Walter Jon Williams.

Walter Jon Williams “Walter Jon Williams really knows how to play power chords in the ‘key of wonder’ and in Implied Spaces he’s gone to town on the guitar solo!”
--Charles Stross

“Implied Spaces pioneers a new genre of SF--- the ‘Sword and Singularity’ novel. Williams combines fantasy tropes believably with nanotech, bleeding-edge infotech speculation, classic smashing-planets space opera, and intriguingly human, or possibly post-human characters along with a fast-moving plot and a quirky sense of humor in a melance that’s cosmological, theological, ontological, comic, and thoroughly entertaining.”

---S.M. Stirling

The mysterious swordsman Aristide wanders the multiverse with his talking cat Bitsy, both of them in search of the “implied spaces,” the accidents of architecture in a world that is itself artificial and created by a supreme intelligence.

While exploring the pre-technological world of Midgarth, Aristide discovers a plot that threatens to shake the multiverse to its foundations, a sinister enemy intent on laying all humanity in his thrall. Aristide must surmount war, plague, death, the loss of love, and cosmic havoc in order to finally confront the enemy, whose secret brings all reality into questions . . .

They call it Black Mind. Using this covert technology, Reno has written his own consciousness over that of Albrecht Roon, one of Earth’s greatest enemies. A saboteur surrounded by enemies, he must act quickly, and without giving himself away, in order to turn the Orbital oppressors against each other and bring down their entire system.

He’s living in a labyrinth of paranoia, surrounded by bodyguards and treacherous rivals. And then he discovers that Black Mind is not a complete success--- Roon still lives inside him, and Roon is mad.

Walter Jon Williams Set in the blazing future of Voice of the Whirlwind, “Wolf Time” continues the story of the mercenary Reese, who finds herself in the employ of a shadowy corporation intent on killing its own rogue employees. Not only is Reese assigned the impossible task of attacking an asteroid outpost whose defenders know perfectly well she’s coming, but she discovers that her greatest danger may come from her own side . . .

Walter Jon Williams Peleng is a planet ripe for the plucking, and Drake Maijstral is an Allowed Burglar rated in the Top Ten by the Imperial Sporting Commission. But what should be a simple case of breaking-and-plundering turns into an intergalactic crisis when Maijstral steals something so rare, so valuable, so utterly desirable, that everyone wants it— including well-armed Imperial spies, gun-toting human militias, a homicidal maniac with a very large sword, and a fanatical countess with a really, really nasty croquet habit.

Walter Jon Williams The Wild Cards universe has been thrilling readers for over 25 years. In Walter Jon Williams's "Prompt. Professional. Pop!" shows that to make it in Hollywood, it's not enough to be beautiful and talented, you've also got to take advantage of every opportunity that pops up.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Walter Jon Williams Nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Award, City on Fire returns to the world-city of Metropolitan, a city dominated by plasm, the magical substance capable of both creation and destruction.

With her help, Aiah’s lover Constantine has established himself in the metropolis of Caraqui, a nation dominated by corrupt officials, gangsters, and the genetically altered known as the “twisted.” Here they hope to create a revolution in the cosmic order--- but first they must fend off treachery, war, and the threat of Taikoen, the “hanged man,” a deadly creature that lives within plasm itself. Aiah must fight not only for her revolution and for her place in the world, but for Constantine’s very soul.

“City on Fire is a splendid, riveting novel in which the most powerful magic is that of a writer directing the twin streams of reason and intuition to produce a dream within the texture of reality.”
--- Russell Letson, Locus, April 1997

“City on Fire, by Walter Jon Williams, is that rarest of entertainments, a sequel that improves on a successful predecessor . . . Mr. Williams’ prose is distinguished by a no-nonsense confidence that perfectly matches Constantine’s unshakable faith in his own destiny and in his ability to resist the corruption that notoriously comes with power.”
---Gerald Jonas, NY Times Book Review, Feb 23, 1997

“Williams [creates] a magnificent world-city, its entire surface urbanized by a multitude of civilizations that draw their very existence from plasm, the mysterious energy contained in all matter . . . Well-drawn, believable characters give emotional force to this fine novel . . . Ultimately, however, it is Williams’s complex world-city, more convincing than even Asimov in Foundation, and his endlessly inventive use of plasm that will hold readers’ fascinated attention.
--- Publishers Weekly, Dec 30, 1996./

Walter Jon Williams After years of struggle, Drake Maijstral has been rated Number One Burglar by the Imperial Sporting Commission. Surely by now he deserves a vacation— and he fully intends to take one, on Earth. But valuable items keep disappearing, and it’s clear that Maijstral, the master thief to end all master thieves, is being preyed upon by another expert burglar. Maijstral would very much like to solve this mystery, but unfortunately people keep challenging him to duels, and he’s become enmeshed in conspiracies laid by two very attractive, very dangerous ladies. And to make things worse, the corpse of Maijstral’s father has been stolen— a corpse that is dead, but still senile.

Rock of Ages is the third hilarious Drake Maijstral adventure by the New York Times best-selling author Walter Jon Williams.

Walter Jon Williams One obsessed cop. Two master thieves. A very small island in space. And The Greatest Treasure in the Empire.

Silverside Station is a small asteroid resort catering to the rich, the famous, and the celebrated-- but is it big enough for both Drake Maijstral (the devious hero of The Crown Jewels) and Geoff Fu George (rated the galaxy's top burglar by the Imperial Sporting Commission), both of whom have set their sights on the Eltdown Shard, a fabulous jewel that captures the light of a dying sun, a jewel that dangles around the comely throat of the Duchess Roberta, a beautiful and dashing heiress who clearly has plans of her own.

Mayhem and hilarity at the only possible result. House of Shards continues the droll adventures of Drake Maijstral-- thief, devout coward, and reluctant hero-- as he schemes his way to the top of the ratings.

Walter Jon Williams This Hugo Award-nominated novelette takes place in the distant future, when a highly-evolved humanity finds itself at war with the alien Shars. The product of eight million years of evolution, Ambassador Drill is sent to make peace... but does he retain enough of his humanity to recognize that of his enemies?

Game designer Dagmar Shaw is skilled at creating vast online entertainments with millions of players. But Dagmar is haunted by her past, and by memories of a burning city, and of the friends who died as a bloody vengeance plot played to its conclusion around her.

Dagmar is an expert at manipulating the online players known as the Group Mind. But when an acquaintance appears with the plan to manipulate an entire Middle Eastern country, to stage a revolution and make the people think it was all their own idea, Dagmar is both appalled and intrigued.

Can she crash the Deep State? And can she do it without creating another bloodbath?

This is no longer a game. The bullets, the tanks, and the spies are real, and so is the danger as Dagmar plunges into the task of gaming an entire state.

When it first appeared, Deep State gained a modest amount of infamy as the novel that predicted the Arab Spring, and appeared the very week the Egyptians occupied Tahrir Square.

“And since this is an intrigue thriller, there are undercurrents and deceptions and hidden agendas and secret loyalties and unexpected betrayals, deeper states of operation and deeper games being played for higher (or lower) stakes. Dagmar faces not only the normal perils of an elaborate and delicate con, but those of the deep state of international politics, where you don’t know who has been bought or intimidated, who might be a plant, who has a history that will blow up at the worst possible moment.” --Russel Letson, Locus

“Williams has crafted a slick, intelligent techno-thriller that never allows the melodramatic storyline to swamp the cast of sympathetic characters.” --Eric Brown, the Guardian

“Both prescient and utterly of the moment, featuring an ingeniously concocted and elaborated plot and a compelling cast of characters, Deep State is a success on every level . . . if ever one of Williams’ books had crossover potential . . . this is it.
” . . . The biggest plot coupon of all . . . is really the card on which the whole hand turns, and Williams does not blow the trick. On the contrary, he weaves this bit of scientific or pseudo-scientific legerdemain very deftly into the warp and weft of his plot, giving the novel that satisfies both logically and emotionally. Like his doughty heroine, Williams is absolutely at the top of his game here.” ---Paul Witcover, Locus

Walter Jon Williams Favian Markham is a rising young American officer in the War of 1812. As commander of the small, slow brig Experiment, he must break the British blockade and take his outgunned vessel on a daring raid into the Narrow Seas of England. On his desperate journey he faces duels, rivalries, ambitious politicians, yardarm-to-yardarm combat, and the deadly beauty of a foreign courtesan. Yet his greatest battle is not with the enemy, but with his own divided nature . . .

Brig of War (originally published as The Raider) is one of the historical novels with which Walter Jon Williams began his career.

Walter Jon Williams This is Walter Jon Williams’ first published work, one of the historical novels with which he began his career.

The American Revolution is throwing up a new breed of hero, Yankee privateers who dare the might of the Royal Navy to slash at British commerce. Foremost among them are the three Markham brothers, Jehu, Josiah, and Malachi, who link their destiny to that of their young nation, and seek their fortune in the cannon’s mouth.

"Liavek is a place worth visiting. Get there before another volume comes out." —VOYA

Walter Jon Williams Devastated by the loss of his family, Gideon Markham has retreated to his ship and the life of the sea. Heir to a privateering tradition, he brings his schooner into the Gulf of Mexico to wage unremitting war on the British who threaten America’s freedom.

But the puritanical Gideon finds the Gulf a strange and threatening place, and soon he must face Jean Laffite’s pirates, a mutiny, an attack by Red Stick Creeks, and a British invasion . . . none of which he finds as baffling and alarming as Maria-Anna de Suarez, an attractive widow who gambles at cards, brandishes a pair of pistols, and plans to lead an expedition into the heart of enemy territory, with Gideon as her guide and pawn.

Originally published as The Yankee, this is one of the action-packed historical novels with which Walter Jon Williams began his career.

Walter Jon Williams Part II of the classic novel.

Sarah, blacklisted and hunted, hides from pursuers in the flooded city, while Cowboy confronts the privateers on their own turf. Michael has a mission that can bring them together, but can they evade the unknown enemies who dog their every step?

Walter Jon Williams Ric has survived a rival’s attempt to poison him, but the hospital AIs pegged him as a suspect character with no job history and a suspicious amount of cash on his person, and they kept the treatments coming until he was broke.

Now he needs a new source of funds, and the hospital which stole his money is chock-full of a new neurohormone that’s worth a fortune. All Ric needs is to manipulate a street gang into committing the crime for him, and then he’ll betray everyone and live happily ever after.

But maybe he hasn’t counted on a new technology aimed at turning him into the star of a very nasty reality show . . .

From Walter Jon Williams, the master of hard-boiled speculative fiction.

But the greatest threat to our heroes comes in the form of a water ballet company, whose director insists on Total Artistic Control.

“...A rapid, imaginative, and at times hilarious story, packed with action and great characters...[Williams’] story is complete, rounded, and a great read.”--Patrick Samphire

Walter Jon Williams Dagmar Shaw is back in Hollywood, with a plan to lasso a series of emerging technologies into a revolutionary new form of entertainment.

Sean Makin is a washed-up child actor clinging to life on reality television, until Dagmar offers him the chance to be a star.

Sean’s past, however, holds the darkest of secrets, and now it looks as if that secret threatens to break loose in a new cycle of violence and murder.

Sean’s determined to succeed, even if the path to stardom is splashed with blood. But the ultimate secret is Dagmar’s, and Sean has to decide how much to pay in order to find out what’s on the other side of the fourth wall.

“ . . . the blending of mystery-thriller, SF, and traditional Hollywood-story elements is hugely successful. It’s one of those ambitious, genre-bending books in which you keep seeing, as you read, ways the story could fall apart under its own weight—but it never does. Surely the best of the Dagmar Shaw series and one of the author’s finest novels.” --Booklist (starred review)

“This is an ambitious novel, blending elements of science fiction, thriller and Hollywood epic into one wildly inventive narrative. It’s the kind of genre-bender that you can spend a lot of time trying to describe, or you can simply say: go read it, right now.” --David Pitt, Winnipeg Free Press

Walter Jon Williams Mark Twain versus the Singularity!

Mark Twain may be the most celebrated man in the world, but his alter ego Sam Clemens is tottering through life, disillusioned by the massacres and madness of the human race and stalked by guilt over the deaths of his children, his brother, and his wife. Sam’s friend, the brilliant scientist Nikola Tesla, creates dazzling new technologies that may transform the world--- but as Sam discovers, Tesla’s inventions may not belong to him, but might instead be the calculating creations of an malevolent intelligence from beyond the Earth.

Mark Twain might be able to save the world, but first Sam Clemens must make up his mind whether the “damned human race” is worth saving.

In “The Boolean Gate,” Walter Jon Williams continues his brilliant series of stories about writers, and brings to life the milieu and the towering personalities of America’s Gilded Age.

“This one is 99% historical fact, although readers unfamiliar with the career of Tesla may think it’s the stuff of science fiction. Tesla was a science fiction writer’s dream made flesh, with also a bit of the mad scientist in the mix . . . but the story really belongs to Sam Clemens, who was in fact Tesla’s friend.”
Lois Tilton, Locus

‘‘Despite the Ragtime-like sense of a slice of Gilded Age life among the historically prominent, this really is SF… Once again, Williams demonstrates the range of his writerly chops.’’
Russell Letson, Locus

Walter Jon Williams In a frigate stolen from his own navy, Captain Favian Markham races to New Orleans with the dispatches he’s captured from a British warship— dispatches making it clear that the city will soon be the target of a British fleet and an invading army.

But Favian finds New Orleans a city of intrigue, where Creoles conspire against the Americans, streetfighters cloak their murders under the Code Duello, the pirate Jean Laffite defies the Navy, and a cabal of elite soldiers conspire to hand the city to the enemy— and where two sensuous Creole women, Eugenie and Campaspe, vie for his favor.

In order to resist the coming invasion, Favian must fight his way clear of conspiracy and unite the divided city, and soon discovers that in order to buy time for the defenders, he must sacrifice his own ship, and his own career, in a hopeless fight against an overwhelming power . . .

Walter Jon Williams Captain Favian Markham, USN, is a man surrounded by secrets. Secrets that will be revealed when he is court-martialed for losing his ship. Secrets held by his mistress Caroline. The secrets of enemy spies signaling to British ships over the horizon. And the greatest secret of the War of 1812, a secret which will be revealed once Favian breaks the enemy blockade in The Macedonian, a frigate stolen from his own government . . .

Originally published as by "Jon Williams," this is one of the historical novels with which Walter Jon Williams began his career.

Walter Jon Williams NIETZSCHE AT THE O.K. CORRAL!

The Clantons and the Earps are heading for a deadly showdown, and into the town of Tombstone rides German Freddie, a gunslinger with a deadly reputation and a penchant for philosophical speculation. Freddie’s committed to a life that is mad, dangerous, and free, and the Earps had better not get in his way--- or else be prepared to face the wrath of Freddie’s deadly six-gun, Zarathustra . . .

Neil Clarke, Walter Jon Williams, Vandana Singh & Michael Swanwick Forever is a new monthly science fiction magazine that features previously published stories you might have missed. Each issue will feature a novella, a brief interview with the novella's author, two short stories, and cover art by Ron Guyatt. Edited by the Hugo and World Fantasy Award winning editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, Neil Clarke.

Our fifth issue features a novella by Walter Jon Williams ("The Green Leopard Plague"), a novelette by Vandana Singh ("Sailing the Antarsa"), and a short story by Michael Swanwick ("Tin Marsh"), and a short interview with Walter Jon Williams.

Walter Jon Williams An alternative-history classic nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards!

Young Mary Godwin has run away with the married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, but a chance encounter places them in the path of Lord Byron, the Hero of Waterloo. Byron wants Mary, and is willing to use Mary’s young, reckless sister Claire as a pawn in his heartless schemes. Exactly how heartless, and how audacious is only revealed on a storm-tossed lake in Switzerland, a tragic encounter that produces not only an alternate history, but an alternate literary monster, a new Frankenstein for a new world..

Walter Jon Williams Nominated for Hugo and Nebula awards, “Surfacing” is the story of Anthony, an emotionally scarred researcher who finds it easier to talk to whales and to aliens than to members of his own species. Until a stranger named Philana enters his life, with a terrifying problem of her own that dares him to break through the surface of his world.

Walter Jon Williams Cowboy, Sarah, and the rebel forces are bunkered in the Mojave desert, readying the strike that will either win the war or bring their own cause down in flames. But neither realizes that their cause has already been betrayed . . .

Walter Jon Williams Cowboy readies his strike on Tempel, but he's being haunted by an electronic ghost named Reno. And Tempel wants Sarah to betray him— and she’s being offered everything she's always wanted.